Getting back to my Playing “Hack the Character” theory from January 9, let us say for the sake of argument that I am on to something here in asserting that mainstream narrative fiction is actually a form of game – and that our pleasure from reading such fiction derives largely from exercising our skills of psychological analysis and empathy as we “level up” within this game.
A corollary to this theory is important to reiterate here: that the author of a well structured novel (or film or play) continues to increase the difficulty of these exercises as the plot progresses. Earlier chapters are introductory puzzles that train the reader on how to analyze the story’s characters. The real puzzles – the ones that provide the greatest rewards – come later in the novel, once the reader is able to play at a higher level.
My question for today is this: Is there a way to emphasize or to underline for the reader the game-play aspect of this experience, while maintaining the pleasure of being carried along by masterful storytelling? I’m not thinking here of interactive fiction per se, in which you the reader choose alternate paths for the characters and plot to take.
Rather, I’m thinking of some sort of reward system that you are explicitly aware of, so that as you read the novel you are acknowledged for having a depth of understanding of the characters’ conflicts and motivations, for being able to understand what a character is likely to do next – perhaps even before he or she does.
There might even be an opportunity for group game-play here. As multiple readers work their way through the narrative, they can play this game together, cooperatively or competitively, or both.
I realize that there are parallels here between these notions and recent serialized narratives on TV such as Lost. But I see at least one difference: Lost is trying to maximize the unpredictability of its plot turns and twists – to maximize surprise by throwing viewers off and keeping them always guessing, even at the expense of character continuity and consistency.
I’m thinking of something closer in spirit to the works of Jane Austin, where the entire edifice is built upon characters who hold together over time: The more you know about them, the more substantial they become. Eventually the reader achieves a sort of knowing and confident intimacy with such characters as Emma Woodhouse or Elizabeth Bennet.
I’m curious to know what people think. Is this an interesting direction, or should we just let well enough alone, and let the novel be the novel?
Something along these lines that might be fun would be a kind of fan fiction made from pre-created events. The player would assemble the plot elements, and recieve a score based on how well it works as a plot. Put the main crisis too early, and your score would be lower than if you build up to it with a series of minor crises. Players could see how adding character establishing scenes earlier would change how an emotional resolution is scored later. I’m not sure this could be done in a rich, subtle way, where the player would be rewarded for trying creative new approaches that the author of the game hadn’t thought of, but it’s worth a try.
I think the idea of examining what people find rewarding in games and novels, and finding ways to mix them is interesting, but I usually prefer the subtle implicit rewards of reading, and the cooperation between author and reader, to the explicit point system and competition in videogames. However, judging by the economics of the situation I’m in the minority.
Ken & Others,
I write novels. While I have a general “center of gravity” of interests when I start a novel, I never know exactly where I’m going. So, in part the question of mystery in a general way frames the experience and makes the journey of discovery, however ambiguous, worth the enormous effort.
Another subjective experience of novel writing that might be of interest in thinking about sequential discovery is this (paraphrasing from a comment by Toni Morrison): in the beginning the knowledge of a character appears more “objective” or real world and precise…but as time goes on, as we get to know a character better and better, the shift of knowing is toward the subjective, where boundaries of ideas and emotions dissolve in a much more complex intersubjective knowledge that transcends the earlier definition of the person we encounter. That’s a very fascinating aspect of getting to know someone beyond the casual encounter and in a gaming sense ramps up the phenomenology of experience to a not easily caged value.
Are we talking “guitar hero” for literature here?
I can see where this is going; years from now, lank haired teens gather in the front room playing the latest Updike, their electro-pens waving frantically in the air as discrete units of narrative prose scroll past, each loaded with a colourful cargo of meaning. Dad helpfully suggests that he can actually write real books and can show them how. Josh explains as if to a mentally recumbant person: “um real writing is GAY mister Grisham”
“The Glass Bead Game” by Hermann Hesse predicts just such a practice (but without the South Park dialogue). In the novel The ‘Magister Ludi’, one Joseph Knecht excels in the eponymous game of the title, a game in which players use the mathematical order of music to weave compositions of beauty and scholarship. So its not going to appeal to the Grand Theft Auto crowd, but no doubt EA already have the rights.